


A White and Soundless Place

by byzantienne



Category: In Nomine
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:49:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3946003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byzantienne/pseuds/byzantienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Zhune-focused AU of fadeaccompli's Leo sequence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em>some things you do for money</em><br/><em>and some you do for fun</em><br/><em>but the things you do for love are going to come back to you one by one</em><br/><em>--"Love Love Love", The Mountain Goats</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes a left turn after "Perfection of a Kind". (A different left turn than the other AU.)
> 
> This is for Fade, who lets me play with her imaginary people. 
> 
> (And for Trows, who convinced me to write it by being enthusiastic on Twitter.)

Leah was gone when Zhune got out of the shower.

Her jacket was still on the hotel room's desk but she'd taken her shoes and her jeans from where they'd been scattered by the bed. She wouldn't have gone far without the jacket. Early winter in Idaho threatened snow and never managed it, and while his partner might be both reckless and pissed off, she got cold easily. She'd be back by dawn.

Slipping out while he was getting clean was as good as saying she didn't actually want to have an argument. She'd go knock over a convenience store or steal a different car and drive it around until she got more bored than she was annoyed, and then she'd come back pretending she hadn't even been gone. He might even let her get away with it. She'd been even snippier than usual since he'd gotten her back from the blessed Marquis, but walking out to cool off after sex was a little better than being _demanding,_ and besides, he was out of beer to pour into her.

Zhune padded barefoot and naked to the desk, leaving damp footprints in the industrial carpeting. He went through the jacket's pockets out of habit: cigarettes, lighter, gum wrapper, handful of change. Nothing interesting or new. Everything as it should be. He replaced the cigarettes in the opposite pocket, discarded the wrapper, and made the change and the lighter disappear inside his trouser pockets as he dressed.

When Leah got back they'd better get down to the job.

They were somewhere southeast of Boise, pointed roughly toward the Utah border. As described, the job was the dull version of a jewel heist. Retrieve a portable but valuable object (in this case, a special kind of _wheat,_ and Zhune was not in the habit of asking why Technologists wanted such things) from a guarded remote location (a very small Lightning Tether), hand it over, and claim payment for doing the bulk of the work. It was not especially complex unless Leah felt like making it that way. After Seattle, Zhune thought that working their way across the country on small heists was the right idea. Nothing more than favors for his friends unless the Boss stepped in directly. It was past time Leah learned to get along with a better sort of Magpie than Chaixin's servants.

If they hadn't needed to take a daylight approach to the Tether, this job would be over already and Zhune could take his partner on towards Iowa City, where there was a proper nest of the Boss's people. Some of them even owed him favors. There were worse places to aim toward. That far inland, none of Leah's inconvenient coastal distractions – either the Lilim in his pretty New York cage or Chaixin's efforts to make Zhune infuriated – would be a problem. She'd learn manners. It was time. Admittedly, she'd take some coaxing, being stubborn, and headstrong, and the sort of person who couldn't be bothered to take her jacket with her. But since when was he incapable of persuasion?

There was a low-budget high-action thriller on the hotel television. New. Leah would insist on talking over it. The transmission was grainy, but it was entertaining enough while he waited.

It was dawn before he began to be angry, and he thought that was quite generous of him.  
It was one thing to slink off like a petulant child. It was quite another to imperil the timing on the job. And wasn't Leah the one who so often insisted that he get to work at the slightest moment of diversion? She was. And here she was willfully preventing him from doing that very work. He was finished with _beginning_ to be angry. There were bargains they'd made, the two of them, concessions on his part and insistances on hers, rules that he'd laid out clearly and more than once. And yet.

And _yet._

Full light. They ought to have been on the road, and there was still no sign of his partner. Zhune left the damn jacket where Leah'd discarded it – clearly she hadn't wanted it, and therefore she didn't need either it or the cigarettes inside it – and went out to the parking lot. They'd drove up in a dull navy Civic, and contrary to Zhune's expectations, it was still where Leah had parked it.

Had she _walked _off? And if she had, to where? There was nowhere to go. A gas station down the road they'd passed coming in, half a mile, and then another five miles back to the highway.__

__Zhune left the car and walked himself. Perhaps she'd gotten drunk by herself and passed out under a bush. It wasn't like her, but neither was failing to show up for the job. But there was no sign of her by the time he'd arrived at the gas station and bought a cup of terrible coffee off the attendant in exchange for a shrug and a statement that the human had only come on shift at six, and no small red-headed women had appeared in the intervening forty-five minutes._ _

__It was as if his partner had vanished off the face of the earth._ _

__It would not do. He looked for her through the tangle of the Symphony, that ever-present link between them which had been there uninterrupted since the first time he took her hand, when she'd been covered in the detritus of other Words and needed stripping down and remaking. Looked for her, and found –_ _

__Nothing._ _

__Blank. As if the line had been cut, the hooked fish not only lost but vanished. The Symphony did not say _hurt,_ did not say _nothing, try again,_ but said _what?_ As if he'd asked an incomprehensible question instead of the most basic, most essential one: where is my partner?_ _

__He asked again, and received the same answer._ _

__She wasn't dead. He'd know if she was dead. The link between them would be broken if she was dead (and surely he would have noticed earlier – a shift in the constant background hum which was the nature of her being _his_ partner), and it was not broken. It was – blank. A thing that ended in the darkness of the water, past where he could see. _ _

__Zhune was neither young nor inexperienced. He had lost partners before – deliberately, or to their own mistakes when such mistakes could no longer be mitigated – but that was a different sense of loss. He had yet to _misplace_ a partner. The concept itself was nonsensical to a Djinn; precisely as nonsensical as the current responses of the Symphony._ _

__He tossed the cup of coffee away without caring where it landed. Leah was not misplaced. She was hidden from him. Hidden implied an outside agency, an active attempt at keeping information from him that ought to have been his for the asking, which belonged to him by right and rules._ _

__Someone had _stolen _her.___ _

____Someone had stolen her and wanted him to know. There were artifacts which could hide an attuned object from its owner: expensive and rare, but not impossible to obtain. Leah had even had hold of one once, during the aftermath of the – incident – with Lust. Zhune had made a point of not checking where she was while she had it, then, as the experience was both uncomfortable and unnecessary. He'd trusted her to hand it over to him when she was done, and she had, without any trouble._ _ _ _

____The use of such an artifact was a _taunt.__ _ _ _

____Someone had stolen her, wanted him to know, and wanted him to be angry about it._ _ _ _

____It was quite like – oh, many of his old enemies. But it was especially like Chaixin. Zhune should have known picking his partner back up in Portland had been too simple. She'd come back unscratched aside from clothes that didn't suit her taste – or his – and insisting everything was fine, and he had perhaps, just perhaps, been too accepting of her account of the job. A taunt was _exactly_ like Chaixin, if her habits of revenge had survived the death of her partner both in form as well as in kind._ _ _ _

____Chaixin's people would still be in Seattle. It had only been a week and they moved slowly. Zhune would simply have to return, and extract Leah from them._ _ _ _

____He didn't bother checking out of the hotel. The parking lot yielded a suitable car – a black SUV, and was Leah here to complain about turning radius? She was not. She could complain as much as she liked when he had retrieved her. He boosted it, aimed it northwest, and broke as many traffic laws as seemed appropriate, which was most of them._ _ _ _

____When the SUV ran out of gas he filled it up and smiled at the station attendant until she loaned him her cellphone. Malva picked up on the third ring._ _ _ _

____"How'd you get this number?"_ _ _ _

____"You gave it to me," Zhune said._ _ _ _

____"Zhune, darling! Don't tell me you're already in town, you said next week –"_ _ _ _

____He leaned against the wall of the gas station and let the chill of the concrete seep through his suit-jacket. "And if I was early?"_ _ _ _

____"Well I'd _manage_ , but there's a swarm of children trashing the room I was going to put you and your latest – what's her name? – in."_ _ _ _

____"Leah. And we're not coming."_ _ _ _

____"Zhune," Malva said, and he could hear her disappointed moue over the cellular satellite, that practiced wide-eyed Impudite whine, "you're a tease."_ _ _ _

____He didn't deny it. Why would he? "I can offer you some compensation for the loss of my company," he said._ _ _ _

____"Like what?"_ _ _ _

____"A job."_ _ _ _

____"I have jobs."_ _ _ _

____"Then pass it off on the children in the spare room." He was bored; this was taking too long._ _ _ _

____Malva clicked her tongue. "You don't usually go around giving out jobs, Zhune."_ _ _ _

____"I do when they need to be done."_ _ _ _

____"Is this one of _your_ jobs? Oh, it is, isn't it, and you don't want to do it." Smug woman, and clever enough that she'd probably take the entire blessed wheat-retrieval project off his hands just to spite him. "It's a good thing I'm no Lilim," she went on, "you'd owe me."_ _ _ _

____"How nice for me that you're not, Malva. It's a smash-and-grab for Technology. Just the sort of thing those children are good for. I'll text you the details."_ _ _ _

____"It's not like you, handing off one of your own projects," Malva said. "A girl could wonder."_ _ _ _

____"She could keep wondering. I'll call if we're stopping by."_ _ _ _

____He hung up before she could keep asking questions. It was a shame, passing off work onto less effective Thieves – he had a reputation to maintain – but it was a shame born out of necessity. And it was only Malva, in Iowa City. It was fine. He had better things to do. And that job wouldn't have worked without Leah, anyhow._ _ _ _


	2. Chapter 2

It was still raining in Seattle, relentless and grey. Sunlight struggled to filter through the clouds. It reminded Zhune of the roof of the world in Stygia. A damp place. When he'd waited for Leah here – three weeks loitering, and he _had_ waited, a generosity only partially borne of not trusting Chaixin to keep his partner both whole and un-corrupted – it had rained nearly every day. He'd kept a careful perimeter of distance. Not so close to that little nest of an apartment that any of her servants would catch sight of him and spook. 

Now he stood in the shadow of an awning across the street and cased the building by eye. Chaixin's people had holed up on the fifth floor, in two adjacent apartments. None of the windows were lit, but that meant very little at mid-afternoon. Zhune kept still and kept out of easy eyeshot from any of those windows. For nearly an hour he watched men and women – none in vessels he knew, all most likely only human – come in and out of the front lobby. He could follow them easily, and be up the stairs in two minutes. It was a bad angle of approach, but he'd dealt with worse. 

One of those windows cracked open. A slim man in dark jeans climbed through it and onto the fire escape. His hair fell over his eyes as he cupped a hand in front of his face, guarding the coal-end of his cigarette as he lit up. One of the Impudites. The tumble of hair, the pose even though no one was watching – no one the man on his smoke-break knew about – the look was unmistakable. So they were still there. Or at least this one was.

He smoked precisely one cigarette. Then ground the butt out on the fire escape's metal slats with his heel and disappeared back inside the apartment. His shadow hovered by the window – locking it, Chaixin would have impressed paranoid levels of safety on all of her creatures – and then moved away.

Satisfied, Zhune crossed the street. The fire escape hugged the internal alleyway between the buildings, the last ladder ending feet above the asphalt. He jumped for it, caught the bottom rung easily, pulled himself up. His suit-jacket stretched across his shoulders, but the point of tailoring was producing a garment that moved with you, even when you were scaling five stories of fire escape. On the landing he dusted the reddish rust off his palms. The Impudite had locked the window behind him. He wasn't immediately visible. Hiding in the kitchen or a bedroom – it would make absolutely no difference.

There were times when he would have picked the lock. He set his hands on the window-jamb and bent his shoulders into brute force. The lock snapped. It would do the child inside some good to be afraid. He climbed in, soundless, and shut the window again afterward. The kitchen, he thought. He could hear the hiss of one of those absurd soda-water makers. Of course this apartment would have one of those. The Impudite – or perhaps the Lilim, she'd been fastidious and prissy enough when she'd borrowed Leah – would have brought it in. He pressed his shoulderblades against the wall next to the kitchen door, out of immediate sight.

When the Impudite came out, glass of water in his hand, Zhune caught him by the upper arm and swung him face-first into the wall. 

He shouted, a wordless noise – no one else in the apartment, then, that was no call for help – and slammed his fist forward. Zhune heard the glass shatter, and then felt the jagged-edged base sink into the meat of his outer thigh. He pulled the Impudite back an inch, shook him, and shoved him forward again, hard enough to knock his breath out. Held him there with his forearm across the back of his neck. 

"That was a very bad idea," he said.

"The fuck do you want," the Impudite managed. He was still reaching for the glass, fingers straining. Zhune grabbed his wrist, bent it back.

"Where is my partner?" he asked. Simple, easy questions. Necessary questions. Blood trickled down his thigh.

The Impudite made a raw, vicious noise inside his throat. "Zhune," he said. " _Good_ for him, if he got away from you."

One of the ones that knew him, then. Zhune considered the line of the Impudite's cheekbone, scraped red. The hair was different; the vessel a little broader in the shoulders. Western clothing changed the lines of a man. But there were only so many Impudites this could be. "Does your Marquis let you out alone now that you've only got the _one,_ Lanthano?" he said. "I'm surprised there's no one watching your back. Where's my partner."

"I wouldn't tell you if I knew."

"Couldn't even wait for her to come crawling to Chaixin like the rest of you, hm? Had to snatch her off the side of the road like a pack of baby Magpies who can't plan farther than the next big score."

Lanthano twisted, trying to work himself free. He wasn't going to manage. Not enough Corporeal Forces. "Like you kept him in better condition?" he asked. "You used to at least _physicially_ take care of your partners –"

Zhune broke two of his fingers. 

"Where is she."

"We don't have him." That thin edge to the voice. His hand must hurt. Zhune readjusted his grip on his fingers, put threatening pressure on a third. "I wish we _did_ ," Lanthano said, breathless, "it would be so satisfying to tell you that, he deserves better than you, but no, he went right back to you and we let him do it – "

The child was practically besotted. Leah was always better than she knew at getting people to _like_ her. This little Impudite of Chaixin's, all those angels. And never the right people. Only people who had no respect for precedence and partnership. Zhune pulled Lanthano away from the wall and dragged him, stumbling, across the room to the couch. Shoved him down.

"Don't try to get away," he said. "I'm between you and the door and I can outrun you."

Lanthano lifted his chin. He was flushed across the cheeks, pale otherwise. He glanced at the door, glanced at the window behind Zhune – and jerked his head in a single nod. _Some_ Ethereal Forces, then.

"Good," he said, and drew his gun.

"I'm not going anywhere," Lanthano said. "That's unnecessary."

"At worst you'll lose the vessel," Zhune said, holding the gun on Lanthano's forehead. He flicked the safety off. "I know you have a phone. Take it out. Dial Chaixin, and then hand the phone to me. If you dial anyone else, or if you take out any other object, you'll wake up in Stygia."

The phone Lanthano pulled out of the back pocket of his jeans – moving slowly the entire time, obedient child – was black and expensively thin. Made in Korea, Zhune would guess, or the best of the knockoff Chinese brands. Lanthano swiped through a password sequence and then dialed directly into the touchscreen keypad. A memorized number, then, or a fake. Would one of Chaixin's creatures really lose a vessel for the sake of preserving a phone number? It wasn't impossible. The whole set of them covered for each other's weaknesses and agreed with each other on every point, whether or not that point was true. Offending one of them meant they were _all_ suddenly against you. It was childish and it would never last. Another half-century at most, now that Daosheng was dead. As the phone began to ring Lanthano held it out to Zhune. He took it with his free hand and kept the gun exactly where it was.

"Lanthano, what's the problem," Chaixin said briskly into his ear. Not even a hello to guarantee her servant's identity.

Zhune said, "Where's my partner, Chaixin?" and _waited_.

"Have you lost track of him?"

"If you tell me what you've done with Leah, I might not shoot your employee." It was best to not let Chaixin have any room for negotiation or threats. Zhune had learned that _decades_ ago, and with a different partner entirely.

"I don't have him," Chaxin said. "Not that I would tell you if I did, but I'd be enjoying this conversation considerably more. Keep going down the list of your old enemies, Zhune. You have so many to consider."

"All the best people do," Zhune told her smoothly, and curled his finger around the trigger of the gun. She was surely lying. Lanthano's face was blank and white, looking up at him, straight down the barrel. Either brave or in shock, and Zhune suspected the latter. Chaixin didn't let her pets get much experience in the line of fire. "But you're the closest, and the one with the penchant for kidnapping. My finger's on the trigger. Ten seconds. His vessel looks expensive. Shame to have to pay for a replacement."

"We don't kidnap employees. If your partner had wanted to be with us, he would be, and there'd be nothing for you to find or point guns at on the entire North American continent. If you damage Lanthano you are paying compensation, wound for wound."

Would she have really shut down her entire operation ahead of schedule if she'd taken Leah, just to protect her people from his retribution? She might. She was sentimental. Sentimental enough to threaten him over one Impudite. "I'm flattered," Zhune said. 

"Go clean your own house," Chaixin said. "I'll find you if you make it necessary. It won't even be difficult." 

There was the soft click of the phone being hung up on her side, and then the hum of dead air.

Petty. She knew about resonance-fuzzing artifacts as well as he did, and yet she made such insinuations. He considered shooting Lanthano just to spite her. But the last thing he needed was a revenge-hungry Marquis after his vessel in some fit of over-enthusiastic recompense. Not while he was searching for Leah. The facts remained the same: someone had stolen his partner, and they wanted him to know it. It merely would have been satisfying if it had been Chaixin. 

He let his finger off the trigger and flipped the safety back on. Lanthano sagged from the chest in relief. Zhune waited for him to hit the bottom of the motion and then whipped the butt of the gun across his cheekbone. The skin split. Sufficient, even if the only noise he made was a choked-back shout.

Zhune tossed the phone into Lanthano's lap. "Good enough. You get to live through the afternoon. Now hand over your wallet, Lanthano, and the keys to your car. I'm not about to bleed over mine, and you've ruined my trousers."

"The car keys are on the table in the front hall," Lanthano said. "And I have to stand up to get my wallet. I hope you never find Leo."

"I could still shoot you."

"You won't."

* * *

Zhune drove Lanthano's car to the nearest high-end mall and bought an entire suit – dust-grey, Hugo Boss, not as good as bespoke but suitable for short notice – with his credit card, before tossing the entire wallet in a recycling bin and hotwiring a decade-old Mercedes from the parking lot.

Seattle was a bad city for driving. While he'd waited for Leah here he had hardly bothered, except for the once – that job in Tacoma. He'd given the car to the human woman he'd used for it when it was over, that was how bad driving in Seattle was. She'd be in Oakland now, and a Soldier of Theft, if she was still alive.

It would have been easier if Chaixin had stolen his partner. He would have had her _back_ by now. 

Some of the other cars were not very appreciative of his driving, from the cacophony of horns. It didn't matter. It was not important. The rain was still coming down, and the previous owner of this Mercedes hadn't replaced the rubber on the windshield-wipers. They stuttered and dragged. Wherever Leah was she wasn't in Seattle.

He reached out for the attunement between them again, like tongueing a loose tooth. Still blank.

Oakland wasn't far. His friends there were the sort he never visited with Leah – mostly Habbalah, the lot of them, and wasn't he _considerate_ of his partner's unreasonable preferences? He was. Perhaps they had heard something. 

Besides, the woman he'd turned into a Soldier could find people by accident. She'd found him without knowing she was looking. And since he'd brought her into Theft, she might as well be his. The Oakland crowd would lend her out, or he'd take her as payment for her prior services rendered to them, since he was responsible for her very existence where they could use her.

He hadn't kept a human servant for longer than a day since he'd made Leah dispose of the child she'd had following her around. A decade ago, now. Perhaps he was due for a change.


	3. An Interlude, With Bread and Water

The Calabite was more portable in his corporeal vessel than he'd been in Shal-Mari, but substantially more difficult to restrain. This was the problem with dealing with Theft on an antagonistic basis. However, such problems were _known_ issues, and could be prepared for substantially in advance.

Unathi had enjoyed the preparations, but not as much as it was currently enjoying the result.

The cargo container was corrugated metal, five feet by five feet, currently open on one end, since its contents were both drugged – Unathi had inserted the IV drip itself, to be absolutely certain about hitting a vein – and shackled wrist-to-wrist and ankle-to-ankle. The ankle shackles were police-issue, wide mundane metal, but the wrists – the wrists were a thin gold loop of chain that had once hung from the exquisite neck of an equally-exquisite agent of Hades. On the prisoner's left thumb was the artifact signet ring that hid him from the Symphony.

They'd been in the warehouse for three hours, and the drugs would be wearing off soon. Unathi was looking forward to when Leo woke up. It appreciated the parallelism it had created: in Shal-Mari it had had Zhune bound like this, and his partner had come to fetch him. A precise reversal of the usual event, with a Djinn. Now Unathi would wait for the half of their partnership who ought to be desperate for a reunion, like it might reel in a fish -- a slow tease of the lure and then a tiring battle on the line. Perhaps a speargun to the back of the neck as a finish.

It crossed its legs, ankle to knee, and settled back in one of the folding chairs Secundus was setting up. The cavernous warehouse rather evoked a movie theater. Unathi even had a snack, a paper cone full of fried calamari. It dipped its fingers into it and retrieved a single perfectly-crisped ring. Crunched.

Prima had her own cone of squid, and the smear of its oil over her lips. She checked Leo's restraints and the condition of the IV drip. Quite proactive, for a Djinn, or at least proactive within the bounds of attempting to look impressive and competent in front of her teacher. Unathi mostly approved. Perhaps a little more flexibility – but one had to take into account the innate weaknesses of a student's Band.

"The drugs are almost gone," she said. "Should I hook up another bag?"

"No," Unathi said. "Let him wake up."

Prima came to stand next to it, the suggestion of a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth. "According to Secundus," she said, "he is a lot of trouble awake."

"Secundus is primarily working off of extrapolation, considering that he missed most of the action last time."

"Still," said Prima. "It'd be safer to keep him knocked out."

"Assuming that Secundus is not mistaken about the nature of the Calabite, and that your own powers of observation have led you to correct conclusions, Prima, consider why I nevertheless want him awake." The other difficulty with most Djinn was that they needed to be prodded past initial conclusions in hopes that they would develop either creativity or cunning. The acquisition of a symbolic imagination would do, in a pinch.

"You want to talk to him."

"Obvious, but not entirely incorrect. Try once more."

Prima took her time considering. Unathi bit into another ring of calamari. It needed slightly more acid – lemon juice, perhaps, or a white-wine vinegar. Finally, she said, "You want him to know you've got him. Because he got away when you had him last, and this is personal revenge."

"Better," said Unathi. "But think of a mirror. What does a mirror do?

"It reflects?"

"It _inverts_ , Prima. In the previous instance where I had this Calabite under my control, it was his Djinn who was chained up like that, awake and waiting, knowing he was in my power. And it was Leo here who showed up as if he was a one-man cavalry charge. Now we all have the opportunity to learn from our previous errors."

She was almost prim when she licked the oilslick off her lips. "I wasn't around to make any of those errors."

Unathi clicked its tongue against its hard palate. The _solipsism_ of young demons. "One can learn by example, Prima," it said. "Watch. And think about what is bringing a Djinn far older, smarter, and more dangerous than you right into our hands."

Secundus, having finished with the chairs, came up to stand behind Prima's shoulder. He fidgeted, and then stopped fidgeting when Unathi looked directly at him. Unathi was looking forward to seeing how he responded to Leo when Leo was awake. It had heard the story of what Leo had done to his student in Shal-Mari, heard it and helped Secundus dissect it multiple times, but there was nothing like exposure therapy. "Unathi," he said, "how will Zhune know where we are if you've fuzzed that attunement?"

"How would _you_ find someone? Since you can't depend on attunements."

Secundus glanced at where Leo lay inside the cargo container, just a flick of his eyes at how the prisoner was beginning to stir. "I'd think about who'd want to kidnap somebody of mine," he said. "And start asking around. Networking, sorta."

Unathi smiled. "Zhune has a plethora of fairweather friends. He'll find a way. I'm counting on it."

It left its students by the chairs and climbed inside the cargo container. The heels of its oxfords clanged on the metal floor. It squatted down next to Leo, and experimentally prodded him in the shoulder. He slit pale-blue eyes open, the pupils still blown wide from the drug. Narrowed them, focusing. Unathi smiled – and watched blind terror bloom across the pretty, delicate face of Leo's vessel.

How intriguing. He hadn't been terrified at all at the beginning, last time.


	4. An Interlude: Oakland to Sacramento

Therese saw Zhune again not three weeks after she'd sold her soul to Hell; a person who believed in inevitable consequences more than she did might have thought it was appropriate.

He came in to the party which was every evening at the Oakland safehouse and transformed it, like an alchemical reagent, from a bunch of pretty, moderately-clever Thieves getting just fucked up enough on locally-sourced drugs and locally-sourced stolen goods into a full-on delighted reunion. Therese had never seen her Habbalite benefactors _coo_ over anything larger than a kitten before, and yet here she was, mixing more drinks in the kitchen, barefoot on the cool marble tiles with the hem of her Maxaria dress scraping over her insteps, and listening to the lot of them chatter in Helltongue.

She was learning it, without being taught. Enough to pick out phrases. What the Demon Prince had given her, when she'd let him steal her soul – the way she couldn't _help_ but notice things out of place, now – it was also good for passive language acquisition. She wondered if he knew. She suspected he knew quite well.

One of the other Hellsworn -- Dimi, twenty-eight and fluent in four European languages as well as threats and intimidation, and just as barefoot as Therese was – took the tray of drinks and slipped through the door. No shoes in the house, and didn't that rule just apply to the Hellsworn and the servants and guests that Sylvia and the other Habbalah didn't like? Kept like the kittens, soft-pawed and coddled. She'd bet money that Zhune was still wearing the dark-grey oxfords he'd come in with.

She wondered if he'd seen her. She wished she wasn't waiting for him to notice. Look how well I've done. A Prince of Hell gave me a gift and I dress your friends in perfect disguises for whatever they need, and they let me mix them drinks without any fear of poison.

How childish of her, really. To imagine he'd want to know that.

In the livingroom, Sylvia was saying, "—but that was the sort of thing Henry liked and we were all a little bored, weren't we? What you're doing now is at least not dull, unless you really are going to try to convince me you don't like blowing up Tethers –"

"—that's what he gets for taking up with a Calabite! Where is she, anyway?"

"Temporarily misplaced," said Zhune, and Therese imagined the planes of his face, how he was perfectly composed except when he thought no one was looking. How he had stalked his partner like she was a lodestone. Like _she_ was the transformative principle of the world, and yet – temporarily misplaced.

Lost, or run off, more likely. And he would be chasing her. That was what Djinn did. The revealed world was so fucking predictable.

She made herself a negroni, peeling the orange with a paring knife. 

Sylvia and Valerie spilled into the kitchen, perfect in skinny jeans and artfully distressed tees under oversized men's jackets – when Therese had found them in a thrift shop and Valerie had kissed her on the mouth, stained her teeth with matte orange lipstain. 

"That poor man," said Sylvia, _sotto voce_. "The partners he picks."

Therese came around the kitchen island and handed Sylvia the finished negroni. "Really," she said. "Do go on."

"Don't bother being sweet on him just because he brought you in, honey," Valerie said. "You aren't half crazy enough, even if you weren't a human."

"His partners are universally terrible," Sylvia said, bending close to Therese, conspiratorial. "He picks these crazy chicks and he gets obsessed and then they either leave him or get killed."

"And then he's miserable for _years,"_ Valerie went on. "Trust me, you don't want to see a Djinn sulk, even if he sulks in bespoke. It's just sad. I keep hoping he'll settle down with someone more suitable –"

"Well," said Sylvia, smirking, "why don't you fall on that grenade, Valerie?"

Valerie threw her hands up in the air. The red polish on her thumb was beginning to chip. "Like fuck," she said, "I'm not _that_ desperate!"

"Maybe not _this_ decade, but I have heard _rumors_ about the Eighties."

"It was a fling, I wanted to steal a Klimt, he had the best suits, but two weeks and I was so done!"

They pawed at each other's shoulders, laughing, Valerie's forehead pressed into Sylvia's neck, and Therese thought _this decade_ with a kind of disgusted envy. Demons lived forever, until they were killed. Demons laughed and wrecked one another and held onto each other in kitchens and ignored their Soldiers and were so blindingly real that her mouth watered, twisted up around her tongue with a desire she had words for but wouldn't say. She'd sold her soul to Theft. _Take what you want._ But also: _nothing about the revealed world is fair._ One side, the other side.

"And here he goes," Valerie was saying, "pining after the latest one again. Let's hope he gets over it fast enough that I'm not even a little bit tempted. I don't do projects."

Therese walked out of the kitchen unnoticed and empty-handed.

Zhune was on the chaise lounge, left corner, one foot up on the creamy leather, tumbler of neat whiskey balanced on his knee. Lexie, the house's one Balseraph, the smallest and worst of all of her benefactors, lay on the rest of the chaise on her stomach, chin balanced on her cupped hands. Zhune's shoes were as expensive as five of his suits. She'd seen that suit in the back catalog of a _Nordstrom's_. 

It was absolutely fascinating.

"What happened to the suit you were wearing this morning?" Therese said, without even thinking about all the reasons not to say it. "Because that one is astoundingly downmarket for you."

Zhune looked at her, expression entirely neutral, and said nothing but "Sit down here, Therese," crooking his pinkie finger, and Therese just _went_. Like she was under compulsion, even though she knew she wasn't; knew entirely, now, what it would be like if she was. Lexie scooted out of her way, smirking, and patted her on the shoulder as she sat down. Lexie was the only one of them who made her skin crawl. She sat still, and didn't shudder, and didn't look at Zhune, or Lexie, or anything exactly at all.

"Tell me," said Zhune, meditatively, "what you think happened to my other suit."

Perhaps she was a party trick.

Therese turned to look at him; looked _properly_ , as an observer of the clothes men and women wore, and what those clothes said about them, and how they might be changed or adjusted for effect. The shirt under that suit was tailored. He'd kept that, from whatever he'd worn previously.

"The trousers were damaged," Therese said. "Stained or ripped or both. And you're on deadline; you went to a _mall_."

Zhune handed her his glass. There was an inch of viscous amber still at the bottom of it. "Good girl," he said. "Drink."

The whiskey burned on her lips where they were chapped. Therese felt weightless, freefalling, entirely and viciously pure. "Close enough for you?"

"You'll do," Zhune said. 

Therese thought it was the most direct he'd ever been with her, and for the first time she was frightened. "For what?" she said.

"Are you enjoying Oakland?"

"Of course she is!" said Lexie, and that was true, and that was -- Lexie, that was why Lexie was the worst of all of them. There wasn't even a reason to do that. To make it true. Therese drank another sip of the whiskey and said yes, of course she was, how could she fail to enjoy this kind of hospitality, and meant all of it, and didn't mind, spilled it out of her mouth like pleasantries at an industry event and looked at Zhune over the rim of his glass and thought, _I fucking dare you to take me away_.

Later, she'd realize she already known he was going to. He'd tested her, to see if she was useful to him. In Seattle he'd kept her just as long as she was useful, and no longer. (The only thing he held onto that was of no use was the partner he was chasing, and she -- stopped thinking about that, not while he was looking at her. He might notice.)

"Hey, Sylvia," Zhune called over his shoulder, and Sylvia appeared in the kitchen door like an apparition. 

"Did you run out of drinks?" she asked. "Hang on, I'll get Dimi to make you another –"

"No," Zhune said. One of his hands came around the back of Therese's neck, under the fall of her hair, warm calloused fingers which held onto her like she was one of the kittens, being carried by her nape, a minor inconvenience. "I'm borrowing your Hellsworn. Should be about a week." Therese did not sag – what she felt wasn't relief anyhow, and she didn't want him to know she felt anything, she was cold and clear and a tool in anyone's hand.

"Oh, sure thing, sweetheart," said Sylvia, breezy, perfect, unconcerned. "Have a great time! Have some _fun_."

Zhune said, "Don't I always?" but Therese thought it might be a rote response. She couldn't quite tell. She wasn't sure what was _Djinn_ and what was _suave_ and what was – was _Zhune_ , who plucked her in and out of the world and didn't explain why.

"I'm sure your partner'll –" Sylvia began, and then visibly thought better of herself. Therese didn't want to know what Zhune's expression was shaped like. Sylvia smiled as bright as morning sunlight after weeks of rain, went on with "Bring Leah around when she gets back, won't you?" and vanished again into the kitchen.

* * *

They left the next evening, driving into the twilight, south and east. Down towards central California. Zhune had been gone most of the previous day, leaving Therese to pack like she was packing for two weeks in Europe: one bag, jersey sheath dresses rolled into neat unwrinklable coils, a sweater of featherweight lace-knitted wool, a single pair of heels. Guessing, the whole time. 

When he came back he had replaced the downmarket suit with a creation in viciously utilitarian black-on-black. It had Milanese buttonholes. Therese _adored_ it; it was a suit for wearing to war. 

It occurred to her that she was likely to end up a casualty as much as anything else. She got into the car anyhow, settled her bag into the backseat footwell, and watched the horizon go dark by inches. Zhune didn't talk. He drove, badly and fast. Therese dug her fingers into the leather of her seat on the curves, thinking _please god please god please god don't let us drive off the onramp_ and meaning only that she really didn't want to die in an incredibly stupid traffic accident. "God" was a phatic utterance. She supposed he was real enough, but she was all forsworn and the forces of Heaven would prefer Zhune careen off I-580.

Sometime after full dark, in stop-and-go traffic outside Sacramento, Therese abandoned sense out of being the kind of bored that made her want to claw her own skin open, and said, "Where are we going, Zhune?"

"I wondered when you were going to start talking."

"Sacramento is not my idea of an ideal destination," Therese said. "But I'm sure you've got some reason for getting us tied up in this traffic jam."

"We aren't going to Sacramento." 

The traffic sputtered to life, moved twenty feet, and subsided again to stillness in the smell of gasoline. Therese waited. She looked out the window and saw only her own reflection in the dark glass, thin-faced with hectic eyes. Zhune drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel and _wouldn't tell her what he wanted from her_. 

Therese said, "When did she leave you?"

Zhune hit her.

He'd moved too fast for her to track, a horrible uncoiling that ended in his palm across her cheek, hard enough to sting. Her eyes were watering. 

"She didn't leave," Zhune said. "She got herself stolen."

Therese reached up and touched where her cheek was flushing red, pressing. It wouldn't bruise, she thought. Of course he'd know how much pressure would do _harm_. He was a Djinn. They had to be careful.

"You didn't have to do that," she said.

"You're right. I didn't."

"Why did you, then?" Therese asked, hating how she was proud to sound angry rather than plaintive. Or desperate.

"You notice what's out of place," Zhune said. It clearly wasn't an answer to her question. He wasn't going to answer her. "My partner's been stolen. The obvious culprits aren't responsible. Something's out of place. Figure it out."

As if it was that easy. As if she could find someone in the invisible world of demons who couldn't be found easily. She didn't even _know_ Zhune's partner – had seen her once, the tiny scowling redhead in Pike Place Market. Knew nothing about her save that Zhune wouldn't let go of her even when she vanished.

Therese said, "I'm not – I'm not a _demon._ I have to ask questions. If you want me to do that. Don't hit me." Now she did sound desperate.

Zhune glanced at her, expression mild as milk. As if he'd never even consider such a thing. He shrugged. "Ask."

"Why can't you find her? Through your resonance."

His fingers tapped faster, that same impatient rhythm. "Artifact. Whoever's got her is blocking her off."

The traffic began to move again. Therese stared out the front window. The problem began to lay itself out for her – a person with access to powerful, rare magic; who wanted to prevent Zhune from finding his partner; who might want to keep Zhune away from his partner – there were parameters. She might be able to do this. If Zhune would talk to her.

"What's she like?" Therese asked. "Leah. Where would she go if she went alone?"

"She wouldn't," said Zhune. 

"Clearly she has," Therese said, and braced herself.

Nothing. No reaction at all. Maybe she just had to keep being _useful_ and nothing would happen to her. 

What a thought. 

But she was committed now, wasn't she?

Zhune took an exit with a sudden, vicious turn of the wheel. Therese yelped through the acceleration, breathed again only when they seemed to be safely on the offramp. "She goes walking. Or steals cars," Zhune said. "She doesn't go far. She knows better."

Therese could imagine she did. She was learning better herself, every minute she was in this car. "Okay," she said. "So it's an attack of opportunity. Is she hard to grab? I mean. Is she strong. Or fast."

"Fast," Zhune said. "And too smart to not hide or call for help unless she was surprised."

"That's something," said Therese. "I need – this isn't like clothes, Zhune, I haven't memorized the goddamn catalogs for fifteen years. I don't know the options. If she was surprised it'd be someone she didn't see or someone she wasn't expecting to attack her. But I don't know the names. Your history is not the fall Paris collection."

"It's older, to begin with," Zhune said.

Therese stared at him. He looked back at her, amused, until she said, "Eyes on the road, _please_ , Zhune – !"

He didn't hit the trees going around the next curve. That was – that was better than it could have been.

"You'll have to tell me," Therese said, quietly. "A list. Of people who might want her. Or might want to – make you angry."

Zhune made a noise that Therese could only interpret as a kind of bitter amusement. "How long can you stay awake?" he said. "This might take until dawn."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A White And Soundless Place: Flipside](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4124386) by [fadeverb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb)




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